Electric Power
- Made:
- 1953 in United Kingdom
- designer:
- Victor Reinganum
Plate glass panel, in two pieces, with engraved design by Victor Reinganum, featuring 'Electric Power as the link between the Natural Sources of Energy and the Consumer'. Commissioned for the Science Museum's Electric Power gallery, 1953. 170x227x1cm, 170x160x1cm.
‘Electric Power’ was commissioned by the Science Museum to feature in its Electric Power Gallery which opened in 1957 and closed in the 1970s. Coinciding with the rapid expansion of the electricity grid in postwar Britain, the gallery focused on the history of electric power and its generation, distribution and conversion to mechanical power.
Victor Reinganum was a multi-disciplinary artist who worked as a graphic designer and illustrator for Radio Times. In the 1920s, he had studied at the Académie Julian in Paris and as a private student of Fernand Léger, and in the 1930s was drawn to the fluid forms of Surrealism. For the Electric Power Gallery, he proposed a design to be etched on two sheets of glass evoking ‘Electrical Power as the link between the Natural Sources of Energy and the Consumer’. The left side plate depicts wind turbines, a hydroelectric dam and nuclear power, while the right side plate, connected by swirling lines, suggests the uses of electricity including lighting, heating and communication.
